Abstract
For millennia large mammalian carnivores, including the Caspian tiger (Panthera
tigris virgata), Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), brown bear (Ursus
arctos), gray wolf (Canis lupus), striped hyena (Hyaena
hyaena), Eurasian
lynx (Lynx lynx) and three subspecies of leopard (Panthera
pardus tulliana,
P.p. saxicolor and P.p. ciscaucasica) roamed mountains, plateaus and grasslands
of Turkey, historically known as Asia Minor or Anatolia. Of the big cats,
only the leopard and Eurasian lynx remain in increasingly isolated mountainous
habitats. Evidence suggests a few leopards remain in Turkey's Black Sea
mountain ranges and the inaccessible peaks of the Taurus Mountains in the
south. Also, despite centuries of persecution, the leopard still exists
in the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Ranges of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia,
receiving some juvenile immigration from a larger population in northern
Iran's Zagros Mountains. Leopard conservation throughout the Caucasus countries
and Turkey will only succeed if viable populations of ungulate prey such
as the Bezoar goat (Capra aegagrus), and wild boar (Sus scrofa) can be
sustained in protected and unprotected habitats, and people in the region
are educated about the importance of these species to the sustainability
of the ecosystem.